Queen Alpha, Jaymin Eve & Leia Stone

Arianna is now Queen of the wolf shifters. But before she can relax into royal life, she must discover why the mecca is acting strangely. With the help of her friends, and hopefully Kade and

Arianna is now Queen of the wolf shifters. But before she can relax into royal life, she must discover why the mecca is acting strangely. With the help of her friends, and hopefully Kade and his bears, Arianna plans to deal with the fae.

Though she is Queen, Arianna must obey the Council, full of conservative shifters with bigoted ideas and ancient secrets. It would be simpler if they would just be open with their intel! Even Arianna’s unrefutable logic that forming an alliance with the bear shifters would give them a united front against the fae, their only real chance to survive the war and maybe even defeat the fae. The Council hates this idea but admits that they need Kade’s help to train Arianna to use her newfound Queen powers.

After earning the Monarchy, the Queen is enhanced with vast mecca power. Arianna is particularly gifted with more mecca than any Queen before. On the other hand, Kade can channel mecca power. It’s poetic that the two have opposing powers that complement each other, making the fact that they should be together even more apparent. The abilities the Monarchs is intriguing, it almost makes them one of the magic-born (shifters able to use magic like witches).

Kade and Arianna must spend a significant amount of time together with the training and attempts can at strategising to defeat the fae. Every moment they’re together Arianna must fight the bone-deep pull she feels for Kade. And it seems he’s doing the same. Though it is romantic, this series handles the forbidden love and attraction much better than other. Others have the characters continually thinking ‘Oh how sexy is blah, I can’t think with blah here, why can’t we just run off together?’. Both Kade and Arianna are rulers and love their people. They would never run off and abandon their responsibilities and friends just so they could be together. It’s a very mature reaction, something you hardly see in many YA romances. The authors show the pairs bond, but it doesn’t focus only on the sexual attraction. They need each other like missing parts of one’s soul, a fantastic display of soul-mates.

As always, the other characters and their development was satisfying and entertaining. I loved Violet and Calista, though the familiars Finn and Nix are still my favourites. Who wouldn’t want a giant wolf or eagle that can talk to you! I haven’t found a series I’m so hooked on in a while, and I have already started the next book. I give it 5/5.

*I have both the book and the audiobook from Audible, the performance the actress provides is terrific and really brings another level to the story.